FOLLOWING in the footsteps of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield comes The Troll Hunter, Norway’s attempt at the hit or miss mockumentary formula.

With little obvious UK press at the box office launch back in September last year, could this film be a lesser-known subtitled gem?

The movie supposedly pieces together unedited, shaky, ‘found footage’, originally intended for a student documentary.

Set in Norway, these video recordings follow three native students on a mission to track down a notorious yet elusive bear poacher.

Quickly finding their man on his way to the woodlands, they not surprisingly discover the unkempt individual to be secretive and unresponsive.

At night, determined to get some answers, they proceed to covertly follow the man (whom we later learn is named Hans), on what they presume can only be a good old-fashioned night of bear killin’.

While the trio plunge deeper into the forestry by foot, they discovers Hans’s dirty secret.

The startled hunter is then seen shouting ‘trrrrooooooooooll!’, leading the way in a frantic getaway from what becomes the group’s first troll encounter.

The rest of the film focuses on the truth behind the trolls.

Importantly, the required linchpin for a mock documentary like this is its authenticity.

The movie has a relatively unknown cast, which helps the feel of the production, although the actor playing the troll hunter himself, Otto Jespersen, is a fairly well known comedian in Norway.

Being a subtitled production with a heavily Nordic cast, it’s genuinely hard to tell at points if the acting is amazing or terrible.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, lets presume it’s good.

The film seems implausible at times and the Scandinavians also seem to recover almost immediately from traumatic events that would otherwise leave one of our kind rocking back and forth, dribbling in a corner for weeks.

With authentic trolls not coming cheap, the movie inevitably relies on CGI.

And it’s is not bad considering a relatively small budget of $3.5m (that’s only 14% of the budget from the Hollywood hyped Cloverfield), however, understandably it fails to deliver to viewers what Jurassic Park did on release.

Director André Øvredal’s The Troll Hunter is a lengthy film but it does maintain the atmosphere and should keep viewers interested.

Described as a dark fantasy, the movie also slips in some subtle comedy. This works in the film’s favour although many missed jokes are probably hidden in Norwegian culture.

Finally, thankfully, as the film isn’t American, there is no awful cheesy ending although we can anticipate a revised ending in the US remake it’s rumoured we can expect.

Rating 3/5

Extras

DVD bonus features. There are plenty of footage from behind the scenes which shows that the Scandinavians do in fact have a sense of humour off screen, even if it is slightly strange at times. Some usual other bits, such as deleted scenes, a trailer and special effects breakdowns are also included.